LAUSR

Affective infrastructure has become an unremarkable feature of geographical research. By examining how ‘affective infrastructure’ has been mobilised within geography and political theory, and charting its distinguishing features – whether as metaphor, analogy, or material-technical system – I suggest that Bosworth's explication presents an opportunity for thinking about the role and development of concepts more broadly. Using the Tyne Bridge as an example of affective infrastructure, I reflect on the mechanisms through which a concept appears and ask whether affective infrastructure's ‘power’ comes from its circulation as a term or shorthand. In clarifying its analytical utility, I ask what implications there might be for affective infrastructure's spaces of connotation, and what is at stake when a concept appears.